Will look at IPO in the future to comply with regulatory guidelines: Sam Ghosh

So we are quite ready for that and our joint venture partner also knows that at some point we will have to jointly go out and IPO the company. At this point, it depends on how Nippon looks at increasing the stake & whether we will decide to list or not.

ET Now: So give us some colour on the insurance company valuations. Do you think that the companies are still undervalued?

Sam Ghosh: If you are looking at from an IPO perspective, during the IPO process, the valuation will come about to what the price should be at. If you look at it purely from an FDI perspective, both the joint venture partners will have to work out what valuations the 23% should be at. So, it is difficult to give a valuation or what multiple it should be, should it be multiple of number of times the embedded value or some other mechanism which people want to use. That is up to each individual partner, be it local and foreign partner.

ET Now: IRDA will be coming up with guidance lines and IPO for non-life companies. Will you be looking to list the general insurance business as well?

Sam Ghosh: We are in the process of discussions with partners to see whether we can do a stake sale in terms of bringing a partner for 26%. If it now goes to FDI is hiked to 49%, we will certainly look at 49%. If we jointly decide to go for an IPO, we will have to look at an IPO. So we are quite open to both and it will depend on who our strategic partner is.